Slingapore

Selamat Pagi and Happy Wesak Day from Malaysia… Yes, Wesak Day, the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday and a public holiday in almost every SE Asian country. It is considered to be one of the most important holidays on the Buddhist calendar. This is one of the fringe benefits of living in a country that observes the holidays of four different religious calendars (Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian), despite Islam being the official state religion. A zillion public holidays … 

It’s a hot, and relatively dry Monday morning, and I’m just waking up after a late night return from Singapore. In a departure from what are normally quite comfy bus rides, the ride home last night was like riding inside a jackhammer… I’m not really sure why, it felt like the driver was either driver right over the center line, where they have the bumpy little reflectors, or maybe over the rumble strips, or maybe just driving too fast… dunno… Only know that my head only finally stopped vibrating this morning! But, that was the only downside to the entire trip…

So Singapore… We boarded the bus Saturday afternoon, about 3:30. It was a five hour ride down. There is a bridge that separates Singapore and Malaysia. On the Malaysia side, you exit through their immigration and Singapore is on the other side. Both places I had some unique experiences. First, on the Malaysia side, I was actually greeted at the immigration desk with a smile, and actually had a conversation with the woman at the counter. If you’ve ever been through the line at an immigration counter, you know that this is a very very rare occurance. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get so much as a hello out of most of them. The place was SO empty, I think they were just happy to see people! On the Singapore side, I was pulled to the side and my backpack was searched. The immigration cards in Singapore look a lot like the ones for Malaysia with DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS written in bold red letters on the bottom. What was amusing though, was, that as the customs official was searching my bag, he didn’t ask me about weapons, or drugs, or any of the usual stuff. He stood there straightfaced and said:

‘Ma’am, are you carrying any chewing gum with you?’

I was not. So, though a Singaporean friend of mine said that it I no longer illegal to chew gum there, I’m not so sure… It is definitely illegal to import it still.

Anyway, we arrived into the city late, and found our hotel, in Little India. Then we set off in search of food, a place to exchange currency, and a short self guided tour of the city… Little India was insane crowded, and, to my delight, packed with vegetarian restaurants. So, after switching over some currency, we sat down to a nice meal of Indian vegetarian goodies. After this, we set out to see part of the city, and settled on heading down to the waterfront, by way of the MRT (subway). The MRT is like an underground airport. It’s huge, with long hallways that you think might go on forever, and even comes complete with people movers! The escalators move so fast, that you could seriously injure yourself if you made a misstep getting on or off. We took the MRT to the city hall station and upon disembarking, found ourselves in an underground shopping mall that was largely deserted. For someone like me, who is always disturbed by shopping malls, it was like a nightmare ;-)… this endless maze of underground shopping mall, that took us nearly 20 minutes to find our way out of…

But, when we did, we were rewarded with the sight of the Esplanade, Singapores answer to the Sydney Opera House, which sits on the waterfront. Basically, it looks like a couple of gigantic glass durian. Luckily, it doesn’t smell like a giant durian… (If you don’t know that that looks like, you will soon, as I have some durian pics in the Singapore batch, if you don’t know what it smells like… I can’t really describe it except to say that, in hotels all over SE Asia, you’ll see signs that say ‘No Durian’… it’s that strong and pungent). On our way there, we passed through a pedestrian subway, in the middle of which was a large open space, where there were groups of teenagers dancing, doing acrobatics, and rollerblading. Really, when I think back on it, in my minds eye, it was such a fantastic montage of different ways of life that we saw as we made our way through the city late Saturday night…

We ended up on the Harbor, sitting along the waterfront. There was a gentle breeze blowing off the water, and that part of the city was largely silent… There were other groups of people sitting along waterfront too, quietly chatting and relaxing together… watching the night go by under an almost full moon… I think we stayed there for an hour or two, and I dozed off a couple of times… Such a beautiful, quiet silence…

The morning greeted us with the sun bearing down and a weighty humidity. Not quite sure what to do with ourselves, we set off first in search of food… Once that need was satisfied, we hopped back on the MRT and went in search of Mt.Faber, from which a cable car will take you across the harbor to Sentosa Island. We found our way there in our typical roundabout fashion… First finding ourselves in a deserted park, then hopping on a random public bus that took us to another random bus, that took us to the deserted business district, where, after some time, we finally grabbed a cab that took us up to the cable car station. This is where all the panoramic views you will see in my pics come from. All of the attractions on Sentosa are basically contrived, solely for the purpose of tourists, but it is nice, just the same. We really only stayed long enough to enjoy a Singapore Sling at the bar that overlooks the island and the bay, and walk around and get some nice pictures. Which really, because the place was crawling with people, was long enough…

And from there, we headed off to Chinatown. Our final destination for the day, before heading back to KL, Chinatown in Singapore is the cleanest, least crowded Chinatown I’ve seen. It’s filled with the usual shops selling cheap imports, CD’s, DVD’s, and low quality clothing with designer labels… A particular favorite that we spotted at a night market here in KL on Friday… ‘Hugo Soss’ jackets… ;-) But the streets are wide, strung with lanterns and colorful lights… As the day turned to dusk, and the night came alive, we browsed the shops, watched an acrobatic troupe doing a street performance, and and of course, ate and drank some more…

And then it was time to catch our bus home… which I’ve already told you about…

Looking back on the trip, it seems characterized with alternating huge empty spaces, and very crowded ones. Moments of serenity and moments of insanity, all wrapped into a very clean, closely controlled city. Walking through the giant seemingly endless halls of the MRT stations, I wondered aloud if they created this illusion of space down there, as a means of maintaining sanity in a place where one could easily become a little crazy with island fever. To give you an idea of just how small Singapore really is, I was told it costs about $30 (Singapore dollars) to cross the entire island in a cab. That’s the entire country!

It was a fantastic couple of days, and I think I took about 150 photos… I hope you enjoy them…

Since I’ve been chewing your ear off for three pages now… I will finish here… It’s getting into the afternoon now, and there are places to go, and things to do… I’m going to motor down to Chinatown in a few minutes and check out the Wesak Day celebrations, and then get back to cleaning and packing for my move at the weeks end!